Why Self-Discipline is Difficult (And How to Make it Easier) - YouTube

This video is going to tell you why self-discipline is difficult, and how to make it easier. Including

5 methods which have helped me COMPLETELY TRANSFORM my life over the last 10 years.

I m Ross Jacobson, AKA The Disciplined Rebel. This channel is all about helping you BUILD

self-discipline. If you like what you see here, hit the like

button, and if you are new, subscribe for more videos like this. Now let s do this!

For this video, I m going to divide things into 2 sections.

First, I m going to discuss why self-discipline is so difficult.

Second, I will talk about how to make self-discipline easier.

Section 1: Why Self-Discipline is Difficult Self-discipline is about learning to control

yourself so you can work towards your goals, even when no one is forcing you to.

The question is, if you want to do something so badly, why is it so hard to get yourself

to do it? Here are 4 reasons why self-discipline is

so difficult. Reason Number 1: Self-Discipline is Difficult

Due to the Resistance You Experience At first glance, it seems like self-discipline

should be easy. Imagine you were a character in a video game,

and you were controlling yourself. If you wanted to make your Video Game Self accomplish

a goal, you d simply click a button, and your Video Game Self would do it.

However, for some reason, in real life getting yourself to do things is so much harder than

pushing a button. But why is that the case? The answer lies in the resistance that you

face, that your Video Game Self doesn t have to.

This resistance comes in many forms, such as pain, effort, stress, fear of failure,

fear of the unknown, lack of energy, and lack of confidence.

In other words, you face resistance from the negative physical, mental, and emotional sensations

that you go through when you attempt to accomplish something.

Reason Number 2: The Problem of Present Bias Makes Self-Discipline Challenging

There is a well-studied phenomenon called Present Bias, which states that most of the

time you do things to benefit your Present Self and you discount the effects your actions

have on your Future Self. One of the reasons why self-discipline is

so difficult, is because the things you want to do are often things where your Present

Self has to do most of the work, and your Future Self gets most of the benefits.

And your Present Self doesn t like that deal. Why do a ton of work just to benefit your

Future Self? One way around the problem of Present Bias

is to learn to delay gratification. That is, to resist short-term rewards in favor of long-term

benefits. And that s definitely part of the equation,

and something I am all for. But it is also a hard skill to learn and will likely take

a long time to develop. Later on, I will share some other methods

for reducing Present Bias, which can help make self-discipline easier.

Reason Number 3: Self-Discipline is Difficult Because Habits Are Tough to Develop

Your life is made up of hundreds of habits which you have accumulated since you were

born. Once you form habits you can do them without

giving them a second thought. The problem is, adopting new habits can be incredibly

difficult. Take exercising for example. There are some

people who have already developed the habit of working out. For those people, exercise

feels great. It s not a chore for them because they ve already pushed past the initial resistance,

and exercise has become a routine part of their lives.

But what if you have never formed the habit of exercising? For you, it s going to be a

lot more challenging since you have to re-wire your brain in order to make working out a

habit. Reason Number 4: The Try Too Hard Cycle Can

Make Self-Discipline Harder Here s what the Try Too Hard Cycle looks like.

You start by wanting to change your life. So, you decide to try to change everything

at once. Which leads to you burning out, and then giving up. After doing nothing for a

while you get bored and fed up, and decide you want to change your life again.

And this cycle keeps repeating OVER AND OVER. An example for me was with working out. For

the longest time, whenever I wanted to get in better shape, instead of doing a simple

workout to start, I would do the most HARDCORE workout I could find. Then after one week

I d burnout and not workout for months. I went through the same cycle for applying

to jobs, trying to eat healthily, and countless other things.

Then there s another problem related to the Try Too Hard Cycle, called procrastination.

Procrastination is related because when you procrastinate you often spend a lot of time

trying to make the perfect plan, but then never get around to following through with

it. It s like going from the want to change your life part of the cycle right to the giving

up part, without even getting to the steps that involve really doing things.

Believe me, I ve been there too. I can t tell you how long I read about the benefits of

meditating before I got around to actually meditating. Literally years!

Section 2: How to Make Self-Discipline Easier. In this section I m going to share 5 methods

which have made self-discipline FAR easier for me. My life has gotten so much better

since I started using these methods, including my health, relationships, career, and pretty

much everything else in my life. Method Number 1: Be as Specific as Possible

with Your Goals! One thing that has radically improved my ability

to stay self-disciplined, is to form clear, specific goals.

I used to have lots of broad, vague goals. Like I want to start meditating, I want to

get in amazing shape, or tomorrow, I SWEAR, I m going to clean my apartment! But when

it came time to mediate, exercise, or clean my apartment, I would get overwhelmed and

give up. Then, after years of this pattern, I started

doing something different. I began to write down SUPER SPECIFIC goals in my to-do list.

Like I am going to meditate 5 minutes in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

And all of a sudden, I found self-discipline was nowhere near as difficult!

If I made a SPECIFIC goal, I was much more likely to follow through with it, because

I had thought through a plan for HOW to accomplish the goal.

And I also started to realize that some of my previous broad, vague goals, were things

I didn t even want to do! They seemed great in THEORY, but once I began to detail out

the specific steps that needed to be done, I realized I didn t want to do them in practice.

And eliminating those things, freed up my time and mental space to be able to focus

my attention on the goals that I really DID want to do!

Method Number 2: Don t Have an All or Nothing Mentality

Back in the day, when I used to pursue a goal, I would have an all or nothing approach. I

either achieved my goal or I didn t. The problem was, this mentality led to me

getting easily discouraged when I didn t achieve that big, final goal I was looking for.

For example, I went through a 2-year period where I couldn t find a job. When job searching,

I would get demoralized whenever I didn t get an offer. And that would often deter me

from applying to jobs for a few weeks. But later on, I started to give myself credit

for the little achievements. Like, hearing back after submitting a resume, having a good

phone interview, or simply sending in an application. As soon as I started to give myself credit

for these little things, something remarkable happened.

I started to become more disciplined and persistent in looking for jobs. And not only that, I

did it with a whole lot more enthusiasm and confidence, which likely showed during interviews.

And as a result, I was able to get a job within just a few months of getting rid of my all

or nothing mentality. Method Number 3: Start Small, and Take Advantage

of The Spillover Effect The Spillover Effect is what I call the idea

that progress in 1 area (even if really small) can lead to a series of exponential breakthroughs

in other parts of your life. This is exactly what happened to me when I

turned my life around. For a few years after school I was in a bad

slump, where I spent all day playing games, eating junk food, and not doing anything productive.

But then one summer I made 1 small change: I decided to play a little basketball each

day. At the time I didn t realize it, but looking

back, this was the moment my life began to turn around.

Basketball led to me lifting weights. Lifting weights led to me eating healthier. Getting

healthier led to increased confidence. And so on. In just a year, my life was so much

better it was like night and day! I had a job, a girlfriend, more confidence, better

social skills, and much more self-discipline. The thing is, the reason why self-discipline

is difficult, is often because you try to make huge changes. But if you start small

and take advantage of the positive momentum that even the smallest of changes can create,

you will start to improve your life in ways that ADD UP to great things.

Method Number 4: Align the Interests of Your Present Self and Future Self

Earlier I mentioned how one of the reasons why self-discipline is difficult is because

of Present Bias. Which occurs due to a misalignment of interests between your Present and Future

Self. But what if you could ALIGN those interests?

If your Present Self AND your Future Self want the same things, you have the winning

formula for making self-discipline easier. Here are a few ways to align the interests

of your Present and Future Self, which have made a big difference for me:

First, try prioritizing goals which your Present Self is likely to enjoy or can learn to enjoy.

Second, make things as easy and convenient as possible for yourself. The easier it is

to do, the more likely your Present Self will want to do it.

And finally, try to find joy in the process, not just in the outcome. For example, if you

are working out, don t just wait until your Future Self gains 20 pounds of muscle to be

happy. Instead, focus on the aspects of the process that you like, or can learn to like,

such as the satisfaction of learning a new exercise, the sense of accomplishment from

pushing yourself for another rep, or the endorphin rush you get. Once you find things you like

about the process, your Present Self will be a lot less likely to resist doing it. I

ve included a link to a video and printable guide in the description below with MUCH more

on how to focus on the process. Method Number 5: Forgive Yourself When Things

Don t Go Perfectly Back when self-discipline was more difficult

for me, I would feel horrible whenever things didn t go the way I planned.

If I missed a workout, I felt regret. If I procrastinated a deadline at school, I felt

guilt. If I tried to apply to a job and didn t get it, I felt shame.

And these negative emotions would often lead me to give up.

But then I learned, slowly but surely, that there was no way to avoid failure. It was

going to happen no matter how hard I tried. And now I ve realized that when I mess up,

the most important thing is to forgive myself and keep moving forward. I haven t gotten

rid of the negative emotions, but I have gotten better at moving past them sooner.

Remember, don t put pressure on yourself to be perfect. Everyone slips up once in a while.

The key is just not to give up for good. I would really appreciate it if you like this

video. And if you are new, make sure to subscribe and tap the bell to get notified when new

videos come out. Thanks for watching, and best of luck on your

journey to BUILD self-discipline.